The larger crackers were part of my old gear and back in the day (40 or so years ago) gear so stamped would be returned. Some of my stuff was also stamped "BA" and/or "RMIT" as I was a member of the Bushwalking/Mountaineering Club at RMIT (before it became a University) and the VCC.

You can still the remnants of the white paint on the rope in the photo, I marked my gear with either white tape or white paint.

The smaller crackers were donated by someone else and look as if they were swaged at a ships chandlers

On 13/01/2013 BA wrote:>Iain Sedgman wrote a history of Roland's goodies that appeared in the May>2001 issue of Argus. The RPs that most people are familiar with are the>later examples of his work. (snip) The first photo shows some of the different sizes and>the different taper during their evolution (snip)>>>

Here is one that was a fixed piece on Buffalo Nth Wall (Defender of The Faith, I think...), that I cleaned, due the wires are obviously corroded (particularly near the head).

It appears to have originally been dipped in yellow paint? (Though I have wire brushed the corrosion off it which also took most of the paint).

... and it has three stamped markings on it. The top is very hard to make out, but could be a B or an R (other possibilities 8 and K), under that is clearly a J, and under that again is clearly an M.

Maybe belonged to John Moore or Reg Marron at one point in time?

Anyone know anything about its history?

As an aside, I have been approached by Stephane Pennequin at Nuts Museum for some of my original gear, and I intend posting* same to him today...

I do not know if this video has already been posted somewhere here on Chockstone. I found a link to this fascinating 8mm movie on Supertopo.com yesterday.http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x0x-oCktX4g
From the historical point of view, this is most interesting. Early Clog Hexagons hit the market in Great Britain in 1966. Ewbank’s Crackers were commercially available in Australia in April 1968. So, the home-made Hexagons shown in this movie (circa 1967) may be somewhat historical.